This Kind Of Life Keeps Breaking Your Heart
by Corsiva Vyrae
Summary: Tony Stark is his own weight on his chest, metal walls placed where his vulnerability lies. [Avengers Character Studies]
1. Be strong, drink stronger

Tony Stark is his own weight on his chest, metal walls placed where his vulnerability lies.

He is blue light filtering through cotton shirts, nightmares of gritty sand in his eyesearsmouth, and a doctor's kind eyes behind broken glasses fighting to stay open; pale lips whispering last words (_"Don't waste it. Don't waste your life."_), and then another good man is dead, and all Tony wants to say is '_I'm sorry, it should have been me, I'm so sorry._', but he's too late, as always.

He is the whirring sound no can really hear, criss-crossed scars on a chest torn open to place a beacon of his genius and his sins on display. Everyone looks, but nobody really _sees_, and he tells himself it's okay, and pretends he's as transparent as the walls in the lab he hides away in; pretends that his only friends aren't composed of things he's made or people he pays to work for him or government liaisons whose orders will always come first.

Tony is a billionaire and a playboy, how could he ever be lonely? (_He focuses on building more things that will make him too useful to dispose of and turns up the music to drown out the truth that mocks him in the ringing silence_.)

His heart is weak (_both ways_), and he's a child turned young man turned man, too used to big, empty houses and being ignored and being a disappointment. From cups of frothy milk and apple juice, he graduated early to liquor and drinks that hit too hard on his small body, his father's sweaty palms and drunken smile teaching him how to wrap his still-soft hands around a glass and swallow downdowndown.

(_His mother smiles blankly, lips bright red, perfect, not a smudge in place, and turns her head the other way_.)

"_You're a Stark,_" his father had told him once, words slurring, eyes glazed over, "_and alcohol puts iron in our veins, and steel in our minds._". Tony nods in agreement, committing the few words that weren't loaded with curses and disapproval into memory. Years later, he'll swirl his vodka around, listen to the tinkling of the ice cubes against the sides, eyes dead and smile as sharp as Howard Stark's used to be, and he'll wonder if he would have turned out happier if he wasn't so desperate to prove that he really was his father's son.

He'll tip his head back and finish everything in one go, and tell himself no, he'd be exactly the same, because Stark men were made to be strong, and drink stronger, after all.

Tony Stark is the world-weary tiredness deep in his bones, but he'll shrug himself off and act like he's "_Fine, just fine, now go away, because I've got things to build and people to scandalize._". He'll flash teeth for the cameras, sunglasses on to cover the bruise-dark bags under his eyes, hands raised in a peace sign, and he'll pray that no one notices the fine tremors of his fingers.

He lives on green protein shakes and runs on barely any sleep; never knew how to be a real boy, and now he doesn't know how to just _be_. He'll show affection through compliments hidden in insults, and casually spending too much money on gifts thought-out-but-sometimes-not-really, because no one taught him what to do with people you actually want in your life. He's a man who's got everything, but nothing, and even if it takes almost his whole life, people will finally come, and they'll see him, and they'll _stay_. He discovers love, finds the steps to letting his walls down around red hair and pearl-white teeth and '_Will that be all, Mr. Stark?_'s, and even though it takes him forever to figure the instructions out, she's still there waiting for him like he knows she always will.

He learns how to fight beside others, learns that maybe he's a team-player after all, and, for all the ways he calls himself out on being the most selfish, the least heroic amongst them, he won't ever hesitate to make the self-sacrifice play. He's unbearable and eccentric and incredibly hard to deal with, but he shakes off possibly broken bones and laughs into the comm-link with blood on his teeth and down the side of his mouth, and gives everyone stupid nicknames and gets knocked down and _gets back up again._

He's Tony Stark, an Icarus that flew and fell and _survived the fall_, and he's gone through his whole life being someone else, but now he's back up under the sun and flying and _living. _

And maybe he's not so good at it because there's still a lot of him that's broken, but he tries.

He is Tony Stark, and he _tries_.


	2. Save the last dance

Steve Rogers looks in the mirror and sees a ghost.

Pale face, dull hair, dead eyes. He stares at his reflection and wonders where he'd gone, where he even is now. (_But he thinks he knows. Before this, all he'd been was a dusty old folder forgotten at the back of a filing cabinet, thick and loaded and labeled 'CLASSIFIED' in big letters and faded ink. After, he's someone who remembers too much and knows too little and thinks that maybe he'd been better off frozen beneath the ice._)

He stands in front of the sink and leans forward, bracing large hands on the ceramic, and grips too tight. He hears it crack.

He blinks and he is Steve again, too small and too fragile and too many rejected applications.  
He blinks and he is Rogers, too disappointed and too trapped and blinded by stage lights and script pages.  
He blinks and he is Captain America, too perfect and too legendary and all anyone ever sees anymore.

He blinks and the world is suddenly different, but he's still the same.

Steve looks at himself and remembers how the last thing he'd been called before the plane hit the ground was 'Steve' (_and he'd never heard his name said that way before-like a question in a prayer, and he never got to give an answer_), and the first thing he's addressed as when he wakes up is 'Captain' (_and it's funny how fitting it is, because a man had died in that crash, and the only one who made it out was the soldier._)

The Kevlar-lined punching bag flies across the room, and he stands with his fists still raised, covered in sweat and muscles still tense. He ignores the way his hands shake from exhaustion, because he's barely slept, and hauls up another bag for the next round.

_One-two-_

Bucky's slipping, slipping, falling. His screams won't stop ringing in his ears.

_-three-four-five-_

He feels Erskine's finger tap weakly against his chest, right over where his heart is, before falling limp. There are gunshots and glass breaking and people yelling, but all Steve can hear is "_Not a good soldier, but a good man_."

_-six-seven-eight-nine-_

Red lips and fierce brown eyes on a heart-shaped face; the way her voice quavers when she says "_A week. Next Saturday. At the Stork Club. Eight-o'-clock, on the dot. Don't you dare be late, understood?_"

_-ten-_

He imagines she looked stunning in her prettiest dress.

He also imagines her sitting alone on a barstool with a drink in hand and watching the clock, and when the seconds-to-minutes-to-hours tick past eight, she buries her head in her hands and tries not to cry because he didn't show _up_-

The chain breaks free and the bag lands a few feet from he stands.

He'll walk over to pick it up, and he'll start the cycle all over again.

And later, Nick Fury will find him and give him a mission, and Steve will follow because he's a soldier, and that's what soldiers are supposed to do. He'll meet an agent who asks him for an autograph; a woman who could fight better than all of the men onboard; a quiet scientist who only wants to do good; a god of thunder who wanted to fight for a world that wasn't even his; a man who could never miss a shot; and even Howard's _son._

Steve feels himself forget how to smile, especially when he hears 'Natasha' and thinks of Peggy, or watches Bruce and remembers Erskine, or is told 'Tony' but hopes for Howard. He looks at these people, but all he sees are twisted reflections, and he doesn't know how he's expected to lead these people when he can't even control _himself._

Because he hates them for reminding him, and he hates them even more for not being who they remind him of, and he hates himself the most for those reasons, and expecting things when he's told himself that _no one's coming back because he's been gone for too long._

They all fight with each other, Tony pushing at him and Steve pushing back, the others' arguing voices making the tension climb higher, and he comes too close to really snapping and just telling them all that he doesn't think they're even going to make it out of this war _alive_. They're all too different, and they clash too much, and they can't stand even stand each other, and Steve doesn't know how he can trust people who don't even trust him.

But Coulson falls, and they rise up for him. Everything clicks into place, and their dysfunctional group suddenly finds a way to fit together, and Steve finds something to raise his shield for.

He feels them, solid and steady beside and behind him, and he wonders if this could become familiar.

And when the battle's over, he'll return to his room-still suited up, shield a heavy weight-and sit alone at his desk with a glass and a good bottle of scotch that's just as old as he is.

He won't think about winning two wars, but losing so much more; won't think about how while he's been making new friends, most of his old ones are six feet underground; won't think about how a week ago became seventy years ago, just by opening his eyes.

He won't think about her, and how he missed what should have been his first proper date, and that, at the end of every day, he still won't know how to dance.


End file.
